


Under The Orange Grove

by The_Muse



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M, Southern modern au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 14:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19929514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Muse/pseuds/The_Muse
Summary: Billy inherits his grandparents farm after his grandfathers death. What begins as nostalgia and a hint of curiosly checking out the place turns into so much more when he meets the mayors wayward son, Steve and with the reappearance of his mother twenty years after she’d abandoned him.“Maybe,” He thinks. “Neil was right. Maybe I am a damn fool.”[Moved from my Sister’s Ao3 account to this one]





	1. Chapter 1

There are things that Billy is willing to forgive his father for, the beatings when he was young for instance, because Neil had taken to the bottle when Cheryl had left him alone with a screaming toddler to raise for some far flung dream that never amounted to anything, or when Billy was a teenager that the beatings had gotten progressively worse, especially after he’d met Susan and Max and brought them to the house saying that they were normal and good and not like her not like Billy who looked just like her.

It took a long time for Billy to reach this point with his father, the forgiveness, not that he’d ever forget living every day after his mother had abandoned them in horror of what Neil would hit him with next or if he would just up and leave too. This terror came when Billy was old enough to understand that he and his father had just not been enough for Cheryl to stick around for and he was terrified, at seven years old, that his dad would walk out the door and never come back too.

What Billy doesn’t forgive is what happened during those silent years that Cheryl was gone, how Neil had gone out of his way to keep Billy away from his grandparents who’d tried their best to be there and tried their best to keep Neil off the bottle. Standing on the large wrap around porch of the old farmhouse, taking deep breaths of fresh hot air, feeling his tee-shirt stick to his back from sweat and sticky humidity, staring at the immense property beyond the house, the gardens at either side of the porch that had been overrun and clogged with thick vines and weeds no longer the colorful paradise of his childhood, he felt something inside his chest shift.

‘Damn foolish,’ Neil had said from his chair, always in that goddamned chair sat in front of the television playing whatever bumfuck western with staticky signal, had tossed a thick envelope at Billy’s feet.

Susan was sat at the sofa, knitting some ridiculous thing that Max would never wear and wouldn’t meet his eye and thats when Billy had figured that it was something bad, something painful. Billy had bent down and retrieved the envelope and released it of its contents eye scanning the papers, the writing professionally printed and the legal jargon that he hardly understood.

‘Damn.’ Neil had mumbled, lighting a cigarette and glaring up at Billy with dark and angry eyes. ‘You see that there, do you?’

‘Yes sir, I see it.’ Billy had no real idea of what he was seeing, understanding it some but not believing it at all. ‘When did it happen?’

‘Years ago,’ Neil said. ‘Didn’t think anything of it, you know, no point in telling you. You didn’t really know them.’

‘No sir, I did.’ Billy remembered his grandparents in bits and pieces. His grandmother’s cottony white curls like a halo around her head, her calloused hands and wrinkled face peppered and abundance of freckles. His grandfather, impossibly tall and limber for someone so old, smelling of sunshine, eyes bluer than the sky with a head full of thick peppery hair that had once been deep black and a thick white beard. ‘I did.’ Billy had said again, mostly to convince himself that they had _been._

‘That woman’s gonna be around now, you know, she’s going to want that house.’

That woman. Billy’s mother.

Susan did look up at the mention of Billy’s mother, having only heard the bad and not really believing any of it. When Billy was a teenager after a particularly bad beating from his father Susan had waited for Neil to leave the house, as he always did, for the bar before tip toeing into Billy’s room to fix him up. She always did these things in secret and at the time Billy had been angry and hateful but never ungrateful for her moments of kindness. He understood how much Neil could hurt someone and a person as small and sweet and soft as Susan couldn’t possibly go up against him.

Not back then anyway.

‘Oh honey, let me see.’ She’d said softly, helping Billy up and to the kitchen. Max peeking out of her bedroom with wide and angry blue eyes before shutting the door. Billy remembers this particular time, taking a seat on the counter and letting Susan fuss after him. She always did when Neil was gone. ‘You know how he gets.’

‘I know.’ Billy grieved a bit as he said it. ‘I should know better than to bring her up.’

‘Oh hush, don’t think you did anything wrong asking for your mother. There is nothing wrong with that. Its just,’ She cleaned blood from his chin as gently as if she were handling an infant. ‘you know, theres something I have for you, something I wanted to give you when Neil was at the bar.’

‘Yeah?’

Susan didn’t give him the small box until after she was done catering to him and fixing him something to eat-another thing she did often-and he was grateful that she made herself scarce after that because Billy was never a good crier, especially in front of anyone. It was the first time he’d seen pictures of his mother as a girl, pictures of her on the farm he could hardly remember, standing with her parents smiling and laughing, some with friends and old boyfriends. There were letters too, sonnets and poems she’d written and then songs.

So many songs.

As he stared at the envelope he thought of his secret treasure, the pieces that Susan had found and carefully put together for him before his father could throw it all away, that Susan lovingly and patiently made it beautiful for Billy to have.

‘What does it matter? They left it all to me.’

‘And you’re going to go there, aren’t you? You’re going to get sucked into that damn small town and that’ll be that.’

‘Doubtful, sir. I’ve got too much to lose here for some hick town.’

But Neil had shaken his head and told Billy to do what he wanted though he did insist on Billy selling the property. What did Billy know about farming? Nothing. It would all be a waste to him anyhow.

‘You’ve been a city boy all your life Billy, what are you going to do with a place like that. You’ll fall in love with it and lose everything.’

It had been a gruff and mean warning but a good warning non the less. As Billy stood on that porch, as he smelled the blooming magnolias, as the scent of honeysuckle and sweet tangerines caught his attention he knew he was well and truly fucked. He’d already fallen in love.


	2. Chapter 2

The furniture is carefully hidden under dusty tarps and sheets that Billy happily removes, coughing at all the dust. He stares at the front room, the parlor, he remembers a deep kind timbre and grins remembering the few times he’d been in this front room. The furniture was hand carved and personally upholstered, dark cherry wood and creamy cushions that matched the dusty cream lace curtains but clashed with the deep red rug.

He sets his keys on the small round coffee table and stares around the room, the family pictures all hung up in need of good dusting, he turns to the relic of a television, and again he begins to remember sitting directly in front of that television when he was just five watching some old movie while his grandmother fussed in the kitchen singing as she cooked.

It hits him suddenly as he remembers the few moments he’d been in this house in his childhood, that these two people who were kind and sweet had loved him were now gone. Had been gone for years now. His eyes linger in the front room, his throat constricts slightly, he walks back out towards the front door where the stairs sat directly. He debated going up but decided against it, the kitchen would be a good place to start, he thought though he didn’t know what starting meant, there was nothing to look for though checking the refrigerator would be smart to do. The groceries he’d bought and had left in the car would soon need to be stored.

So he walks past the stairs towards the opening of the kitchen, the large airy room with its ancient stove and appliances sat covered in a coating of dust and it made him suddenly so sad that there had been no one to take care of the house. Billy’s mother was a flighty thing that wasn’t any secret but Billy had uncles and aunts who still lived in town, didn’t he? How could they not come to make sure the house was looked after?

He walks towards the sink, stares out of one of the many windows at the back and feels himself ache, the barn was red but the paint was chipping and the farm...

“What the fuck.” Billy walks to the far left, the door to the back, and hastily makes his way outside where there should have been something. He can hardly remember but what he does remember was that there had been trees, so many trees and now there was not but a few handfuls.

Where were all the oranges? There were tangerines, sure, but that hadn’t been what his grandparents tended and sold, were they? Weren’t there others things too? Billy didn’t expect to see animals, no they would have been moved immediately after his grandfather died but what about everything else?

He clears his throat, angry that they’d been torn out of the ground, angry that his father hadn’t given him the opportunity to say goodbye or to have come here before to take care of the farm, whether to sell or keep. Someone had been messing about here and it made his blood boil.

He digs a smoke out of the nearly crushed pack from the pocket of his tee, lights up and takes a deep and angry breath.

He makes his way to the barn and feels himself become increasingly angrier. There were signs that people had been inside, signs that they’d taken things too. Billy starts recalling times in this barn when he was young, remembers that there had been old tool boxes and momentos that his grandfather had laying about, things that at the time Billy wouldn’t have known were worth something but as an adult undoubtedly understanding.

He doesn’t want to think of his grandfather’s things being stolen and sold by some faceless stranger that couldn’t help themselves just like he doesn’t want to think about the people that had gotten rid of the vegetation, that had tried to smite what his family had worked so hard for.

Billy doesn’t slam the door once he makes it inside, he shuts it lightly the way his grandmother had always done, though he does light up another cigarette which makes him feel guilty for just a second before he remembers that his grandmother had smoked in the house.

He sits at the oval breakfast table and takes a deep breath trying to lessen his anger. Billy had always had an issue with his anger, lord understands with his upbringing but it had cost him a job and a long time boyfriend so-

“Jesus.” His fingers comb through his curls frustratingly. “Jesus.”

The vultures had certainly come to call once his grandfather had died, how long had they waited? Not long, probably. Not long at all.

Billy finishes his cigarette and makes his way to the sink glad, suddenly, that he’d made the appropriate calls before his flight into town because the sink spouts cold water and that means the lights will work. He reaches into his back pocket for the small leather bound phone book his father has tossed to him before he’d left.

’Maggin is who you’ll be wanting to talk to about the place.’ Neil had said in lieu of goodbye. ‘He’ll know what to do with it.’

Later, after he’s made the call, after he’s walked through and checked the rest of the house when he’s laying on the floor, half dressed and drunk on scotch left behind in an near empty drawer in his grandfathers study, Billy will begin feel himself crumble, just a little bit. The unfamiliar, stuffy room that his grandfather made into a study is cozy yet dusty after years of disuse, the built in bookshelves still packed too tightly that everything seemed to nearly spill out from the shelves. Billy wonders about the man who lived in the house and ran his farm, whose daughter left with some no good drifter and whose wife had died a handful of years later leaving him in the house all alone. 

He wonders, mostly, why the house was allowed to remain untouched, as though time had stopped its claim on it.

Billy drinks till he falls asleep and drinks when he wakes up, lays flat on the bare wooden floor of the study, counting the floating bits of dust caught in the bright yellow sunlight as they drift softly through it, sweat clinging to his body his sweaty back sticking to the wooden floor. He does a few sit ups, eyes the doorframe and debates on whether to do a few pull-ups when there is a knock on the front door down stairs. He’s too tipsy and weary to dress himself and really even if he were in the right state of mind Billy doubts he would care.

He stands, stretches and marches downstairs, each step pounding loudly in his ears like loud and painful heartbeats.


	3. Chapter 3

Morris Maggin, a short balding man dressed in an old cheap checkered suit, his blazer buttoned up and stretched to capacity over his rotund belly, ambles up the wide front porch steps and uses his hat to fan his sweaty face, turned bright pink from the hot humid air. He pulls opened the old rickety screen and knocks firmly on the blue chipped front door, listening for the young man inside and oh boy was he is curious about Cheryl’s boy. Morris remembers Cheryl from back in high school, remembers her thick curly hair and her bright blue eyes and how she’d laugh and laugh. And he remembers seeing her up in the pews at Church and really, wasn’t she the reason why all the boys attended mass, to watch Cheryl Lynn Monahan sing?

The blue door swings opened and if not for the obviously masculin features-broad expanse of powerful shoulders and a muscular chest, a jaw peppered with blonde stubble-well he might have thought he was looking right at her. The boy definitely took after his mother with his long blonde curly hair and his bright blue eyes lined by impossibly long curled lashes and he even had her pink mouth but there was no softness to him at all, he was built powerfully and yet, like his mother, his entire persona shown through his posture. Just standing at the doorway in just a pair of loose gray sweats and he appeared larger than life.

“Mister Maggin?” The boy-Billy as he’d introduced himself on the phone- moved back to allow Morris entrance into the house. “Thanks for coming on such short notice. Coffee?”

“Coffee on a day like this?”

“Iced coffee or some iced tea, if thats better.”

“I’d love some.”

Morris enters the house, the buzz from the old air conditioning unit at the window greets his ears, cold air chilling his sweat dampened skin deliciously as Billy shuts the door and crosses his arms a bit uncomfortably.

“Did I catch you sleepin’?” Morris’s gray eyes twinkle as he takes in the boys nervousness.

“Working out.” Billy says evenly and motions for Morris to follow him into the kitchen, the expanse of windows against the far walls over the counters and sink overlooks the backyard and what a shame, Morris thinks, that Darby and Lissette had decided to cut so many of the trees down.

He takes a seat at the oval breakfast table and watches as Billy opens the old fridge and produces a pitcher of iced tea with a bright yellow lemon floating inside. He wonders when Billy had made it to town if he’d only arrived the day before. How no one was already gossiping about Cheryl’s boy in town. Of course Morris thought that Billy must had needed something to eat. Of course he’d have made his way to Mullaby’s Grocery for something and somehow missed the notice of the people, somehow. Maybe he was just that lucky.

“I picked up some stuff after I picked up my rental. Haven’t made it into town yet.” Billy says as he places a tall glass on the table in front of Morris. He sits opposite and twiddles with his thumbs. “I gotta say, I was surprised you came.”

“Why is that?” Morris takes a long drink, sees the boys father in him a bit and it turns his tongue sour. Neil Hargrove was a no good man, that had been clear when he’d ridden into town and then, a year and a few arrests later, driven out with Cheryl her belly full of baby. At least, Morris decided, the bit that did look like Neil in the boy was minimal. “By the way, how’d you get my number?”

“Neil,” Billy says. “He left me with my mothers old phone book, said you’d be the best person to talk to about the property and maybe how to handle it.”

“Well he was right.” Morris says. “I worked with Rory up until the day he got sick, you know. Your grandfather was a hell of a man.”

Billy smiles sweetly, eyes downcast perhaps in remembrance, Morris thinks as he takes another drink. That was, hell, four years ago when Morris had last been on the property managing the farm for Rory, because Rory had no mind to manage the paperwork but was great with working with his hands.

He’d been a hard man, Morris begins, catching Billy’s attenion as he speaks, a hard and strict man but good and robust and strong for his age so it’d been such a shock when the stroke came and he’d never really recovered and died in the house surrounded by children he didn’t really like and grandchildren he didn’t understand.

“I have cousins?”

“Yes. Barclay and Marie are your uncle Darby’s kids and then theres your aunt Lissette’s kids, Millie, Mary Jane and Joey.” Morris says with a twist to his lips a bit disparaging.

“Not good people?” Billy says with a bit of a grin, it looks mean and its unnatural on a face so close to lovely as Cheryl’s, an expression that is decidedly Neil’s and Morris is a little uncomfortable by it.

“Oh did I say something?”

“That look on your face.” Billy leans back, taps a tune on the table top, his expression far away now and a bit sad. “Its about the inheritance then, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely.” Morris nods. “Darby and Lissette thought that it would go to them and their kids, lickety split, you know because your mother left and no ones seen her and after your father left town for good no one saw you either.”

“They kept in contact with Neil.” Billy admits, eyes still unfocused and dreary staring over Morris’s shoulder. “Sent him money, and clothes and toys for me but I never knew.”

Morris unbuttons his blazer and leans back, pulls a hanky from his front shirt pocket and dabs at his sweaty forehead. “Course they did. They were good people.”

Billy hums and Morris’s eyes follow a drop of condensation as it slowly trails down the tall and now empty glass he’d been drinking from, down it goes and finally it meets the table, the droplet spreading against the wood.

“Can I make it work here?” Billy asks after a long second.

“ ‘Scuse me?” Morris peeks up.

“If I wanted to keep the place.” Billy says slowly, eyes on Morris’s. “If I wanted to live here could I run this farm?”

“You’d want to?” Morris asks surprised by Cheryl’s boy, who looks like her and should have wanted to get rid of the place she’d always thought was boring, a place she couldn’t wait to get away from. “You’d want to stay?”

“Why not?” Billy produces a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his loose sweats, lights up and offers one to Morris. “This place, well, when I walked up the steps I started remembering them in pieces. I was five so its not much and maybe its a bit more exaggerated in my mind but I remember being happy and I remember them loving me.” He laughs, it sounds so deprecating. “Jesus, you know, I am never this chatty. I think I’m still drunk.”

“I thought you said you were working out?”

“Can’t I do both?”

Morris huffs a bit, gives a small laugh and thinks that if this boy sticks around that he would like him very much. Maybe the bits that were his father were just that small and maybe all he had of his mother was just her looks. Maybe he was like his hardworking grandfather or like his ball busting grandmother who fought first, cocksure and aggressive and then was sweet the next.

“More than half the trees are gone.” Morris starts.

“I saw that.”

“There were plans to convert the place, you know, before Rory died he had lots of plans.” Morris says, plumes of gray blue smoke coming out in tendrils from his nostrils as he sat forward. “And you got it all, you know, all of the money. You can make it happen. I mean, it could really work.”

“Well shit,” Billy says blowing a perfectly round smoke ring before leaning back and grinning widely, all white teeth, finality in his voice. “I’ve got a farm.”

Morris laughs and asks Billy about a stiff drink.

“Rory had some good stuff in his study. Let’s hope Darby didn’t find it.”

“He didn’t.” Billy says with such assurance. “What do you think I’ve been drinking?”


	4. Chapter 4

Billy wakes up drunk on the floor of his grandfathers study for the third day since he’d gotten into town. He glares up at the wood beam ceiling, watches dust motes gliding through the bright yellow rays coming in through the slats from the window shades and thinks.

‘It’ll take me some time to get the boys together. How’s about you take some time to really think about taking in the farm and relax.’ Maggin had said two nights before, sat at Billy’s breakfast table this shy of drunk, face redder than it had been when he’d walked in to the house that first hot day. He’d splayed a hand on his considerable girth and had gazed past Billy with an absentminded smile like he was remembering the good old days.

‘What? Take a vacation?’ Billy hadn’t any time off since he’d flown into town to see the place, he wasn’t exactly the type of person who liked taking off from work having just gotten a promotion that he was now leaving behind. He felt his anxiety rising at the thought of the life he was leaving and how it wasn’t really a great one after all when he thought about the house he was in now and the life he would now be leading.

So Billy had decided to take a bit of time off to think, just like Maggin had insisted. Three days drinking and crashing and eating whatever it was he was able to manage to get into his gullet without having to really cook and there was…nothing. What could Billy do with this time off before reality would set in and he would have to upend his entire life to start this new one?

He was an idiot certainly, thats what he thought remembering how his father had been so certain that Billy woudn’t be coming back to California once he got to see the farm. How the old man had just known Billy so well that he’d even offered to pack up his belongings and send it.

‘Well, you’re my kid what the hell else were you going to do? The right thing?’ Neil had sounded almost amused on the phone, proven right, yet again, that his son was a moron. ‘Lucky that you left Susan a key to your apartment.’

Neil hadn’t asked about the place but had been sure mentioned that he would rather die than set foot on the property and for Billy to send pictures to Susan who wanted to see it and thats it. ‘We’ll see you during holidays at least. You know how your mother gets.’

Billy stumbles bleary eyed out of the office, down the hall into the bathroom and stares at his reflection in the spotty mirror before washing his face with freezing water, trying to wake himself up as much as he could. He cups a hand in the freezing stream jetting out of the ancient faucet and drinks mouthfuls until his belly is chilled and full of water.

“C’mon you fuck, wake up.” He says to his reflection, blinking away water, his lashes appearing darker and longer now clumps together. “Sober up you shit.”

He stumbles out of the bathroom and goes to the small room directly across from it, what had been meant to be his room, because Billy had felt like a trespasser when he’d opened the master bedroom with his grandparents things, was a sorry excuse of a guest room with a tiny twin mattress on a rickety creaking metal iron wrought frame. Billy thinks that when he was a kid that this had been the room he’d slept in when he was permitted to stay over though there was none of the familiar comfort in it the way there had been in the parlor, the comforting warmth from the kitchen or the sad stagnation of his grandfather’s study.

He falls face first into the tiny dusty bed and falls immediately to sleep again only to be awoken, at what feels like, immediately after. It wasn’t, the old wind up monstrosity of a mantle clock on the bedside table that read that it was two o’clock and not the eleven thirty it had been when he glanced it right before falling asleep. What had woken him, Billy growls in agitation, was the persistent knocking on his door and whoever it was didn’t seem to care a wit that they were knocking this close to too hard on a strangers door.

Billy rips off his tee and trudges out of the room, bare feet slapping against the wood floor as he goes, down the hall and skipping down the steps to the bottom floor. The person continued to knock and Billy felt that whoever it was he would certainly screw up whatever first impression there was to be had, after all, Billy in even a slightly inconvenienced mood was never a good thing.

His words, which would have been laced with hot agitation and hate, die on his lips.

“Shit, you really do look like her.” The tall, scraggly looking blonde man says, hand fisted, loosens and lowers to his side. His beard is long and unkempt and as curly as the blonde hair on his head, his blue eyes familiar yet odd on an unfamiliar face. “Damn,” The man says. “Damn.”

“Can I help you?” Billy says after a beat too long like he can pretend that he doesn’t know who this person is. Its obvious who the man is but Billy’s never really met him, even before when he was a kid.

He can see himself in his uncle Darby, a bit at least. His uncle was tall, reedy and lacked any of the hard bulk that Billy had inherited, which was expected as Billy’s hard body was similar to Neil. But the coloring, his tanned skin, his blue eyes, his blond curly hair-that was reminiscent of Billy’s mother and of his grandmother.

“Heard you got int’uh town.” Darby says with a bit of a slur though Billy can see the man isn’t drunk just tired and weary and smelling strongly like the sun, like dirt. “Want’d to see you.” He nods a bit, looks past Billy’s shoulder into the house before looking back at Billy like he’d seen a ghost. “You really do look like Cheryl Lynn.”

“Yeah,” Billy leans his shoulder against the door frame, crosses his arms and nods back because he’s heard it a few times already. “I get that a lot.”

Billy had, from Maggin and Mister Shelby from the bank and during the few times he’d been stopped in the street, one particularly strange time by a gaggle of giggly older women just out of church who had immediately recognized him because of his curly blond hair and his eyes.

They’d even asked him if he could sing, which had touched him a bit, if Billy were being honest.

“Anyone else been by today?”

“If they have then I haven’t heard them.” Billy steps back away from the door and motions for Darby to come inside, a coil of nerves hot in his belly as he lets the tall man pass him into the house, watching as his impossibly wide shoulders haunch with each step appearing harmless.

But he isn’t harmless, Billy reminds himself of Maggin and what Maggin had said about his aunt and uncle, how Darby and Lissette had wanted to take everything away from Billy once his grandfather died.

‘Something like sibling rivalry. They never did get along with Cheryl, Darby didn’t like the way she shined and Lissette didn’ like that Cheryl shined.’


End file.
